Yep. Also, configuring your computer is ...different. Want to access the "Control Panel"? You have to go a roundabout way. Or to get to "Customize your PC," you have to ALREADY KNOW to go to the far right of the screen for the bar to pop out, THEN hit the little wheelie thing, THEN go find "Customize your PC."

My name is Bill and I was wrong about Windows 8 and based my constant flaming of Windows 8 on a the vocal minority without even trying it.

Now then.. I decided to buy the $40 upgrade and used it as a full install.. Umm.. Yeah.. It's actually not bad.. Not bad at all. I haven't even installed a Start Menu replacement because I honestly have no idea for it.. The Start Screen is pretty farking handy..

My name is Bill and I was wrong about Windows 8 and based my constant flaming of Windows 8 on a the vocal minority without even trying it.

Now then.. I decided to buy the $40 upgrade and used it as a full install.. Umm.. Yeah.. It's actually not bad.. Not bad at all. I haven't even installed a Start Menu replacement because I honestly have no idea for it.. The Start Screen is pretty farking handy..

well saved me from having to post the exact same thing. Off to get a RT tablet as well this weekend.

Yep. Also, configuring your computer is ...different. Want to access the "Control Panel"? You have to go a roundabout way. Or to get to "Customize your PC," you have to ALREADY KNOW to go to the far right of the screen for the bar to pop out, THEN hit the little wheelie thing, THEN go find "Customize your PC."

It'll be great for people not used to Windows Everything But 8...

Or you can also just move the mouse to the lower left hand corner (where the State Screen is) and right click instead of left. It'll bring up a menu that has Control Panel in it. Granted it's not exactly intuitive and completely different than how it used to be...but at least it's the same number of clicks as Win7.

olapbill:styckx: I'm going to do something on the internet that is rarely done.

My name is Bill and I was wrong about Windows 8 and based my constant flaming of Windows 8 on a the vocal minority without even trying it.

Now then.. I decided to buy the $40 upgrade and used it as a full install.. Umm.. Yeah.. It's actually not bad.. Not bad at all. I haven't even installed a Start Menu replacement because I honestly have no idea for it.. The Start Screen is pretty farking handy..

well saved me from having to post the exact same thing. Off to get a RT tablet as well this weekend.

Me 3. There's still some weirdness that makes me wonder what they were smoking and some things that are just stupid, but for the vast majority of the work I do on my computer it's exactly the same as Win7. The real learning curve is figuring out how to get to the more advanced tools. Once you know where they are they're actually pretty easy to get to.

As with everything, it takes a little while to get used to. Now that I'm more familiar with certain shortcuts that a quick Google search taught me, I can navigate more quickly around the OS than I could in Vista or 7. I think it's a decent upgrade.

xanadian:Yep. Also, configuring your computer is ...different. Want to access the "Control Panel"? You have to go a roundabout way. Or to get to "Customize your PC," you have to ALREADY KNOW to go to the far right of the screen for the bar to pop out, THEN hit the little wheelie thing, THEN go find "Customize your PC."

To be fair, that bullshiat got well under way in Windows Vista and accelerated with 7. That's just a continuation of a trend of stupidizing the interface for people who can't figure out how to do anything except use the search bar and guided screens. I'm still pretty annoyed at the way 7 buried so much of the configuration so much more deeply behind menus upon menus of shiat.

On the plus side, I've learned the names of a hell of a lot of new CPL files that I can just launch from the Run box so there's that anyway...

I wouldn't really care that much about Windows 8 either way because as far as I'm concerned it's mostly just pointless. I really just hate that they put the start screen and new desktop on Server which is just completely farktarded beyond all belief and most of my users still haven't figured out how to use the Office ribbons, now you want them to learn a whole new OS?

The Server part I can live with thanks to Powershell, but the teaching the lusers the new system is just not going to happen. I do not get paid enough to give the enormous level of fark that would be required to try and explain to some of these people how to use the new system.

On the other hand, it's not like half of them had yet figured out how to use the 17 year old Start menu anyway...

ForgotMyTowel:olapbill: styckx: I'm going to do something on the internet that is rarely done.

My name is Bill and I was wrong about Windows 8 and based my constant flaming of Windows 8 on a the vocal minority without even trying it.

Now then.. I decided to buy the $40 upgrade and used it as a full install.. Umm.. Yeah.. It's actually not bad.. Not bad at all. I haven't even installed a Start Menu replacement because I honestly have no idea for it.. The Start Screen is pretty farking handy..

well saved me from having to post the exact same thing. Off to get a RT tablet as well this weekend.

Me 3. There's still some weirdness that makes me wonder what they were smoking and some things that are just stupid, but for the vast majority of the work I do on my computer it's exactly the same as Win7. The real learning curve is figuring out how to get to the more advanced tools. Once you know where they are they're actually pretty easy to get to.

ghare:WIndows 8 is fine, Vista was fine too if you weren't a booger-eating moron trying to run it with 512k.

Vista was only "fine" after SP1. Before that it was a bug-riddled disaster of poor planning burdened by terrible implementation. If you actually used your computer for anything besides web browsing, email and spreadsheets, pre-SP1 Vista was a massive headache. If you didn't use your computer for anything useful, you should have just kept using XP.

Scary but Microsoft I think actually knew what they were doing here.. When I started using Windows 8 the first thing I did was start pinning shiat to the Taskbar.. Then it hit me.. "I never even used the Start Menu on Windows 7".. I just pinned important shiat to the Taskbar. Hell 90% of the time if I needed to get to the control panel I just clicked on a open folder and typed "Contr" let it auto complete and went to the control panel.

So, instead of pinning shiat to the Taskbar I'm pinning it to the Start Screen which doubles as a nice little hub of information..

Things I don't like. The Music app. I get MS is trying to force their service on you but it navigating my 70GB mp3 collection via their music app is a farking asshole nightmare.. XBMC, Winamp, hell WMP is such an easier way to do things.

But yeah.. Windows 8 is nice.. Another thing I like about it.. I've used the Windows key more than I ever have since that key was invented.. The shortcuts (Win-C for example) are handy as hell.

Vegan Meat Popsicle:xanadian: Yep. Also, configuring your computer is ...different. Want to access the "Control Panel"? You have to go a roundabout way. Or to get to "Customize your PC," you have to ALREADY KNOW to go to the far right of the screen for the bar to pop out, THEN hit the little wheelie thing, THEN go find "Customize your PC."

To be fair, that bullshiat got well under way in Windows Vista and accelerated with 7. That's just a continuation of a trend of stupidizing the interface for people who can't figure out how to do anything except use the search bar and guided screens. I'm still pretty annoyed at the way 7 buried so much of the configuration so much more deeply behind menus upon menus of shiat.

On the plus side, I've learned the names of a hell of a lot of new CPL files that I can just launch from the Run box so there's that anyway...

I wouldn't really care that much about Windows 8 either way because as far as I'm concerned it's mostly just pointless. I really just hate that they put the start screen and new desktop on Server which is just completely farktarded beyond all belief and most of my users still haven't figured out how to use the Office ribbons, now you want them to learn a whole new OS?

The Server part I can live with thanks to Powershell, but the teaching the lusers the new system is just not going to happen. I do not get paid enough to give the enormous level of fark that would be required to try and explain to some of these people how to use the new system.

On the other hand, it's not like half of them had yet figured out how to use the 17 year old Start menu anyway...

I would hope users of Windows Server are smart enough to figure out that:

1) the start button is invisible unless you mouse over it2) the start menu is full screen now

styckx:Things I don't like. The Music app. I get MS is trying to force their service on you but it navigating my 70GB mp3 collection via their music app is a farking asshole nightmare.. XBMC, Winamp, hell WMP is such an easier way to do things.

I really liked the WMP UI but I had move away from it since it kept hanging every time I started it up. It would start updating the media library and then just shiat the bed. It was extremely frustrating to use, I even uninstalled rainmeter and lost a good 5 hours of customizing to my desktop to try and fix it. I now use winamp and I hate the library browser since it can't browse by folder, and I have to use PS3 media server to serve media for the house.

Just got a new laptop with Windows 8. It was incredibly frustrating at first, but it's not so bad as I get used to it. Part of the problem was the trackpad. I think it has some sort of gestures so that I was always inadvertently switching back to the Start screen, or doing some other gestures accidentally. It got a lot better once I hooked up a wireless mouse. I still think the method for closing apps is stupid, at least if you aren't using a touch screen.

randroid:I would hope users of Windows Server are smart enough to figure out that:

Maybe you should try understanding the main purpose of a server OS before you comment about one?

It has nothing do with "figuring it out". This insistence upon tying the server's interface to the same-generation client's interface is increasingly annoying. Not only does it obscure quick access to the more technical bits of the OS that more routinely require maintenance or changes, changing the fundamental interface itself has the potential to introduce new bugs and security problems.

To some extent this is alleviated by the presence of Powershell and shortcuts run from the Run prompt, but that doesn't help the other issues it invites. Not to mention the fact that a lot of management on Server machines in an AD forest is actually done remotely now using a client machine running the Professional version of the current Windows client which means if you want all the remote management features for 2012, you'll probably need Windows 8 and all its retarded tile-y pointlessness.

Which, of course, is the point. Microsoft continues to stupidly believe tech people are going to drop their Android and iOS devices for Windows phones and tablets to do remote management, which is about as likely to be something they can force as Milhouse becoming a meme.

/ and there's always Core of course, but many things, such as Exchange, still aren't supported on Core

ghare:WIndows 8 is fine, Vista was fine too if you weren't a booger-eating moron trying to run it with 512k.

Vista introduced a lot of problems that were not going to be encountered by the typical user, but were infuriating if you did come across them. Things like not remembering security credentials of mapped drives unless you got the top tier edition of the OS. I worked around it by not having my mapped drives persist, and instead creating them at startup with a script (with credentials intact), but there was absolutely no reason I should have had to do that. The drive mapping process didn't even tell me it wouldn't save the passwords, it just didn't. It let me enter them and save them and then promptly forgot them.

burndtdan:gingerjet: No one has any real need to upgrade from Windows 7.

I said that to a guy at work, and he said "it boots faster." Unfortunately for that selling point, I care more about how usable it is AFTER it boots.

And besides, with an SSD Windows 7 boots plenty fast.

B-b-b-but if you can't maintain your computer by meeting the very steep requirement of "not actively farking it up" you can easily roll it back to stock without having to do a full reinstall! And it will totally, definitely we promise work exactly as intended and not require a bazillion patches before it actually does what it's supposed to!

/ number of times I have ever reinstalled Windows 7 on a non-test-bench machine: 0// and if I had a reason to believe I might need to, I'd create VM to work with

Yep. Also, configuring your computer is ...different. Want to access the "Control Panel"? You have to go a roundabout way. Or to get to "Customize your PC," you have to ALREADY KNOW to go to the far right of the screen for the bar to pop out, THEN hit the little wheelie thing, THEN go find "Customize your PC."

It'll be great for people not used to Windows Everything But 8...

Or you can also just move the mouse to the lower left hand corner (where the State Screen is) and right click instead of left. It'll bring up a menu that has Control Panel in it. Granted it's not exactly intuitive and completely different than how it used to be...but at least it's the same number of clicks as Win7.

As a desktop administrator who typically accesses Windows systems (including my management console) from a Remote Desktop session in a window, I can verify that accessing the Start menu is easier than accessing a "hot corner" when attempting to find system tools and resources.

I also did not appreciate having to enter the Windows 8 product key from the command line, even if I do have documentation for doing so.

I said that to a guy at work, and he said "it boots faster." Unfortunately for that selling point, I care more about how usable it is AFTER it boots.

And besides, with an SSD Windows 7 boots plenty fast.

B-b-b-but if you can't maintain your computer by meeting the very steep requirement of "not actively farking it up" you can easily roll it back to stock without having to do a full reinstall! And it will totally, definitely we promise work exactly as intended and not require a bazillion patches before it actually does what it's supposed to!

/ number of times I have ever reinstalled Windows 7 on a non-test-bench machine: 0// and if I had a reason to believe I might need to, I'd create VM to work with

The first thing I did with 7 (after doing some basic installs and updates) was take a full image. And I have all of my data backed up. My OS could go tits up any time and I'd lose hardly any time.

I've never quite figured out what causes the compulsion to rage and spew vitriol on every single new Microsoft OS version. It's just not that big of a deal, and Win7 is gonna be around for quite some time. The nice thing about Microsoft is that you can go YEARS without being forced to upgrade if you don't want to.

And I'll go ahead and say that after months of running Win8 without a touchscreen and weeks working on the Surface RT, it's just not that bad, with or without touch. It'sot flawless either and accesory drivers have been a sore point, but anyone who's been doing this a while expects that (Still looking for Win7 64 RAW converter from Canon after a few years).

Very, Very true. There is no need for a touch interface 'skin' on a Server and it's just a click-hurdle where none is needed. (That being said, clever use of LiveTiles could be used to make the Start Screen a useful Server Dashboard).

blazemongr:If someone that new to computers can pick up your tablet, start pushing things, and figure out where the games are with hardly any instruction whatsoever, you have a winner.

Then Win8 is a winner. Games are a big giant tile right on the opening screen. Next objection?

I hope one day Microsoft actually make local networking not require a degree in the IT field and a major in Chinese fingertrap escaping. The entire thing is a giant bag of dicks.. The between the sharing tab and it's add user permissions, the security tab with it's own farking mess of user groupers and permissions, then the advanced screen on the security tab with yet another farking layer of permissions and bullshiat, then to top it all off you have farking homegroups.

Seriously.. Everyone thinks Linux local networking is hard.. It's farking easy compared to the plate of spaghetti Microsoft has turned configuring local networking in to.

styckx:The between the sharing tab and it's add user permissions, the security tab with it's own farking mess of user groupers and permissions, then the advanced screen on the security tab with yet another farking layer of permissions and bullshiat, then to top it all off you have farking homegroups.

If you're not technically proficient enough to know the details of how share and file permissions interact than the only thing you need to know about them is:

1. Give the Everyone group full control of the share2. Set your file permissions at the file/folder level3. Use the advanced tab solely for looking at the Effective Permissions for a user or group when you can't figure something out.

Scary but Microsoft I think actually knew what they were doing here.. When I started using Windows 8 the first thing I did was start pinning shiat to the Taskbar.. Then it hit me.. "I never even used the Start Menu on Windows 7".. I just pinned important shiat to the Taskbar. Hell 90% of the time if I needed to get to the control panel I just clicked on a open folder and typed "Contr" let it auto complete and went to the control panel.

So, instead of pinning shiat to the Taskbar I'm pinning it to the Start Screen which doubles as a nice little hub of information..

Things I don't like. The Music app. I get MS is trying to force their service on you but it navigating my 70GB mp3 collection via their music app is a farking asshole nightmare.. XBMC, Winamp, hell WMP is such an easier way to do things.

But yeah.. Windows 8 is nice.. Another thing I like about it.. I've used the Windows key more than I ever have since that key was invented.. The shortcuts (Win-C for example) are handy as hell.

Scary but Microsoft I think actually knew what they were doing here.. When I started using Windows 8 the first thing I did was start pinning shiat to the Taskbar.. Then it hit me.. "I never even used the Start Menu on Windows 7".. I just pinned important shiat to the Taskbar. Hell 90% of the time if I needed to get to the control panel I just clicked on a open folder and typed "Contr" let it auto complete and went to the control panel.

So, instead of pinning shiat to the Taskbar I'm pinning it to the Start Screen which doubles as a nice little hub of information..

Things I don't like. The Music app. I get MS is trying to force their service on you but it navigating my 70GB mp3 collection via their music app is a farking asshole nightmare.. XBMC, Winamp, hell WMP is such an easier way to do things.

But yeah.. Windows 8 is nice.. Another thing I like about it.. I've used the Windows key more than I ever have since that key was invented.. The shortcuts (Win-C for example) are handy as hell.

Vegan Meat Popsicle:randroid: I would hope users of Windows Server are smart enough to figure out that:

Maybe you should try understanding the main purpose of a server OS before you comment about one?

It has nothing do with "figuring it out". This insistence upon tying the server's interface to the same-generation client's interface is increasingly annoying. Not only does it obscure quick access to the more technical bits of the OS that more routinely require maintenance or changes, changing the fundamental interface itself has the potential to introduce new bugs and security problems.

To some extent this is alleviated by the presence of Powershell and shortcuts run from the Run prompt, but that doesn't help the other issues it invites. Not to mention the fact that a lot of management on Server machines in an AD forest is actually done remotely now using a client machine running the Professional version of the current Windows client which means if you want all the remote management features for 2012, you'll probably need Windows 8 and all its retarded tile-y pointlessness.

Which, of course, is the point. Microsoft continues to stupidly believe tech people are going to drop their Android and iOS devices for Windows phones and tablets to do remote management, which is about as likely to be something they can force as Milhouse becoming a meme.

/ and there's always Core of course, but many things, such as Exchange, still aren't supported on Core

I understand the point of a server OS. You put it in Server Core mode(The default installation option) and administer it via powershell and the Server Console app from an Admin PC.

Besides, do you really expect MS to fork the codebase and look and feel because you can't figure out those two points I said? No, Exchange admins can spend 5 seconds pinning the shortcut to Exchange System Manager to the start screen until the exchange team makes exchange able to be administrated remotely(assuming it isn't already. I don't know, I'm not an exchange admin but it seems like the kind of thing they would have figured out)

By the way, MMC and cmd.exe have been the same since windows 2000. Nothing about the administrative UI has changed.

Scary but Microsoft I think actually knew what they were doing here.. When I started using Windows 8 the first thing I did was start pinning shiat to the Taskbar.. Then it hit me.. "I never even used the Start Menu on Windows 7".. I just pinned important shiat to the Taskbar. Hell 90% of the time if I needed to get to the control panel I just clicked on a open folder and typed "Contr" let it auto complete and went to the control panel.

So, instead of pinning shiat to the Taskbar I'm pinning it to the Start Screen which doubles as a nice little hub of information..

Things I don't like. The Music app. I get MS is trying to force their service on you but it navigating my 70GB mp3 collection via their music app is a farking asshole nightmare.. XBMC, Winamp, hell WMP is such an easier way to do things.

But yeah.. Windows 8 is nice.. Another thing I like about it.. I've used the Windows key more than I ever have since that key was invented.. The shortcuts (Win-C for example) are handy as hell.

I don't see the problem. You're supposed to skip every other release. 95 was good, 98 was horrible, XP was good, Vista was not, Windows 7 is good, and 8 is an aesthetic disaster... When 9 comes out, I'll start running it on my computers.

MrSteve007:It's funny people are saying that, based on pure rumor, considering Balmer said they sold 4-million Windows 8 upgrades in the first 3 days.

That's not really what he said. Microsoft is notorious, especially among its investors, for the way it screws with launch numbers to front load sales figures while there's still enough hype that people are paying attention.

That number, for example, almost certainly counts companies that just happened to renew their SA contract for another period. They get an "upgrade" to Windows 8 whether that was the actual intent or not, so a company with 20,000 Windows 7 machines and SA just bought 20,000 Windows 8 upgrades. And if he starts talking revenue during the time frame that 8 became available it will probably count the 1/2 billion in deferred revenue from Windows 7 sales in the first quarter.

Playing with Ballmer's numbers like that is like trying to decide if you want to take a chance on the expired milk in the back of the fridge. Maybe they're good, maybe they're not. Just ask the Windows Phone fanboys who ran with his "millions sold" numbers regarding Windows Phone 7 copies some time back... funny how you don't see millions of people actually using those phones, though.

Unless you can wring actual activation numbers out of Microsoft, you'd be wise to take any of their claimed sales figures with a very large grain of salt.